


Exulansis

by MsMay



Category: Naruto
Genre: Artist AU, Modern AU, Sand Siblings-centric, Uzumaki Naruto is a Good Friend, there's some implied Kakashi/Gai but it's real quiet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 11:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13188684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsMay/pseuds/MsMay
Summary: exulansisn. the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to itShukaku was born into the loving hands of his mother, and delivered from them almost immediately after. This was not the last time someone would touch him with care, but he would come to think of this moment as a failure. Perhaps it was not a failure on his part, or on his mother’s part, or on any other human’s part, but it was a failure on the part of the universe. Every child has the right to be loved, but somehow he had been overlooked.Despite this, his hands gravitate towards the world around him, and they build, again and again, everything that he sees.





	Exulansis

 

Shukaku was born into the loving hands of his mother, and delivered from them almost immediately after. This was not the last time someone would touch him with care, but he would come to think of this moment as a failure. Perhaps it was not a failure on his part, or on his mother’s part, or on any other human’s part, but it was a failure on the part of the universe. Every child has the right to be loved, but somehow he had been overlooked.

Shukaku had an uncle who he thought loved him very much. And he loved his uncle very much. By some cruel twist of fate, Shukaku had come into the habit of loving people very much, who did not love him at all. For example, Shukaku loved his father very much. He loved the other children at the pre-school very much. He loved his brother and his sister very much, though he did not see them very often. His father said he was special, and so he had to be kept apart. This made Shukaku lonely, but he had his uncle. His uncle did his best to keep him company.

One day his uncle said, “Come on Gaara, you’re going to stay with me for a little while. We’re going to go on a vacation, would you like that?”

Shukaku liked that idea very much. He had begun to read very early, and so he had read a lot about vacations and what fun they were. He wondered, were they going to the beach? The mountains? Where were they going?

“We’re going to a little cabin, in a secluded part of the woods, Gaara. But come on now, shh, don’t make a sound. We don’t want your father knowing and spoiling all our fun.”

Shukaku had never disobeyed his father before, but . . . Well this wasn’t disobeying. If his uncle said it would be fine, he was sure it would be. They left in the dead of night. All Shukaku took with him was his stuffed bear. His uncle said they could buy new clothes and toothbrushes and whatever else they needed when they got to their vacation spot. His uncle said, that Shukaku could even choose what he wanted to wear, whatever colors, whatever fabrics. Shukaku was so excited. He couldn’t remember the last time he got to choose something for himself. This would be a wonderful vacation.

The cabin was not so much a cabin as a little house, and it was not so much secluded, as in the middle of nowhere. This was magical to Shukaku. Strange children always found magic things far away in the woods, and there was no denying that Shukaku was a strange child. He couldn’t remember anyone telling him he was strange outright, but he knew that, maybe, he was  _very_  strange. But that was alright because his uncle loved him, and he had taken him on this fun vacation, and Shukaku was very excited.

For the first few days though, Shukaku was not allowed to go outside, or turn the lights on in the house, or make any noise. That was alright. Shukaku had found a piece of charcoal in the fireplace and so he drew smudgy black figures everywhere he could reach. His uncle looked alarmed by this but did not tell him no, so Shukaku kept drawing. Shukaku liked to make things.

On the first day that Shukaku was allowed to watch the television, there was a story about a missing boy. He had been kidnapped, it said, by his-

“Let’s not watch that,” said Shukaku’s uncle. He changed it to cartoons. Shukaku did not really like the cartoons. He did not understand them. Mindful of his uncle’s warning, Shukaku flipped through the channels until he found a story about the desert and its ancient kings, and monuments of stone. They talked about creatures of dreams, the guardian-beasts of the afterworld. The greatest was known as Shukaku. He liked this, he decided.

Shukaku was very happy. Very very happy. He loved his uncle very much, and while he missed other people, he loved his vacation. He had never been allowed outside of his family compound before. Even the pre-school was inside his compound.

Shukaku was so very happy when his uncle said he was allowed to go outside for the first time. They had to dye his hair, because his uncle said there were not a lot of red-haired children in this town, and he did not want Shukaku to stick out.

“I need you to be invisible,” his uncle said. “You have to watch, be very wary, and think very carefully about what you see.”

So he did. He began to watch.

They had been on vacation for a few weeks, when Shukaku awoke in the middle of the night. At home he was not allowed to sleep for more than four hours at a time, but since he had come to the mountains, he had been sleeping quite a lot. It was strange to awake in the middle of the night now, so he crept downstairs to investigate what could have awakened him. Perhaps there was a forest creature tapping on a window, or perhaps something more magical, like a fairy. He began to walk slowly, but soon he could smell something, and the air became foggy and grey. It was smoke, he realized. The house was burning.

The nearest exit was just through the kitchen, on his right. His uncle’s room was to his left, through the hallways, and dining room. Shukaku turned left.  

He loved his uncle very much. He wanted him to be safe.

Shukaku ran with bare feet through the quickly growing flames. Everything burned a bright red, flickering and contorting in an orange and grey haze. Before he could make it to his uncle’s room, he caught a flash of movement in the living room. A black figure shifted out of the doorway, deeper into the house. But Shukaku was not watching it. He was watching his uncle. His uncle was tied to a chair, head hanging heavy, as if he were asleep.

Shukaku called out to him, and his uncle lifted his head.

“I’m sorry Gaara,” he said. Shukaku ran to him, hard sobs breaking in his throat. His uncle looked at him with dead, impassive eyes. “No one will love you now,” he said, “you must take care of yourself.”

There was a strange thing strapped to his uncle’s chest, bulging in places, and made of bricks of something connected to wires.

“Run,” his uncle said. Shukaku would not have run. He would have stayed. But huge hands, covered in black leather pried him away. They tore him from the floor. They dragged him from the still burning house. They were joined by other figures, all clad in black, running from the house.

“ _Goddamn it!”_ His figure screamed, as Shukaku managed to tear himself from the man’s hand. “Get back here you piece of shit, it’s going to blow!” Shukaku was not listening.

His uncle said that no one loved him, but that was ridiculous, because his uncle loved him. His uncle loved him so very much, and he would not leave him, or hurt him, and so Shukaku had to save him, and explain to him that everything would be fine. That was what his uncle did, when Shukaku was so sad that he did bad things.

The black hands wrapped around him, and threw him against the ground. His head cracked against the earth, and left the red and grey haze of his home spinning. They lifted his limp body, and took him, running, away from the home. They did not make it very far, before the house blew. Something, a piece of wall, or old table, or maybe a cabinet, flew through the wreckage and planted itself in the neck of the one carrying him. He dropped to the ground, and Shukaku dropped with him. A few of the other black figures dropped too. The nearest one fell, screaming and clutching the side of his face, as fire ate away at it.

Shukaku was screaming and crying too. He tried to go back to the house, where his uncle was. He had to save his uncle. His uncle was probably hurt, he had to-

“Give it up!” The figure in black with the burned face lifted him, and held tight. Shukaku trembled, but there was something about the grotesque twist of the man’s still burning flesh that held him captive. “Your uncle’s dead. You’re going back to your father.”

Shukaku thought that was a strange thing to say. He had always belonged to his father.

 

. . .

 

When he was returned to his family he met with his father.

“No one loves you,” his father said.

“That’s not true,” Shukaku said. His uncle loved him and his uncle told him that he had to love himself. That was two people. Two people was a lot more than no one.

“Is that so?” his father asked.

He put Shukaku in a cage.

 

. . .

 

For seven days and seven nights, Shukaku was left in the cage. It was a small box, only big enough for Shukaku to curl up in. They brought him water, sometimes. They did not bring him food.

For seven days and seven nights, they asked Shukaku if anyone loved him, and every time he said yes. After a while, he began to realize that his uncle was not coming back. That still left one person. One person was a lot more than no one.

For seven days and seven nights they did this. Then they took him from the cage, they dyed his hair red again, and they forced him into a bath where they scrubbed his skin raw. They gave him white clothes, and held him down while they put a needle to his forehead. He screamed. They tattooed “love” to his forehead.

“Since you’re old enough to argue with me,” his father said, “you’re old enough to play with the big kids, isn’t that right?” Shukaku did not respond. His father laughed. “Welcome home,” he said.

 

. . .

 

Shukaku had been taught to fight since he was very young. That was what pre-school was for. Still, the older kids were meaner, more practiced, and bigger than he was. By all accounts Shukaku should have died. But he didn’t.

His uncle had taught him to watch, and that was what he did. He watched, and so he knew how the others fought. He knew where they made mistakes.

His father told him he was proud. His father told him that he was making a lot of money off of him.

 

. . .

 

And so a little boy who watched, became something outside of himself. Legs took him places. Hands would wrap around the column of someone’s throat and they would press and press, and the little boy would watch. He watched this all happen from someplace far away, far far away. He drifted so far away that this life became like a dream. When he closed his eyes he saw the flickering screen of the television that his uncle had let him watch. He remembered the beasts of the afterworld, those things on the other side. He became Shukaku.

Somewhere along the way he forgot about love. He forgot what it felt like. The memory of his uncle no longer hurt, or confused, or comforted him. There could be comfort, even in a nightmare, if it was familiar. But Shukaku stopped dreaming. Nothing touched him anymore. Nothing made his heart beat. Nothing except killing.

In the moment when the life beneath his hands was about to give out, sometimes Shukaku would be able to . . . to something. Maybe he connected in that instant. He could feel it, just one, strong, thud of his heart in his chest. Killing made his heart beat. Was that love?

 

. . .

 

His room was decently furnished with a bed, and a table, and bookshelf. Sometimes Shukaku could not remember what these things were for. He could break a leg off a table and use it as a weapon. Someone could be smothered on the bed. He knew these were things he would do with them, but he also knew that was not what they were for. He did not know what a bookshelf did.

Shukaku laid on the floor, unmoving, in a puddle of his own piss. He did not care to get up. He would get up when someone called for him. Someone would always call for him. There were always people to kill.

When next someone came, they opened the door and made a noise, as if someone had crushed their throat. Then the door closed again. After a while it opened, and someone tried to haul him up. He broke their hand and dislocated their shoulder.

“Don’t touch me,” Shukaku said. The others who came into the room all stood very still. They told him to get cleaned up. He bathed, and they watched him, and he did not care. When they thought he was too far away, or too stupid to hear, they talked about socialization. They said he needed people to remember how to behave.

Shukaku smiled to himself.

They wanted him to be a killing machine, but still human enough to hurt. What foolishness. He would not be human enough to hurt. The heart had already been burned out of him.

 

. . .

 

“These are your siblings,” his father said, gesturing to a pair of strangers. One was tall, and stiff lipped with messy blond pigtails. One wore a black hoodie, and open horror across its painted face. Shukaku did not respond. He did not know what one did with siblings. He had a vague memory of these faces, from a time that seemed too long ago, but it was nothing more than the shadow of feeling.

“You two will manage him from now on,” his father said to the strangers. The one with pigtails nodded while the other looked as if it would be sick. His father clapped this other one on the back. “Think of it as preparing to take over the family business,” he said. The one in the hoodie opened its mouth, but the other pinched it’s side, and so it did not speak. Their father left.

“My name is Temari,” the one with pigtails said. Shukaku stared back at it. It wore a strange thing, a hoop of fabric, like the hospital gowns Shukaku had seen other children wear when someone did not quite beat them to death. Shukaku wondered if this sibling was broken. That would explain why it was looking so distressed. It swallowed and shifted from foot to foot.

“This is Kankuro,” it said, gesturing to the one in the black hoodie. Shukaku liked that hoodie.

“Give it to me,” Shukaku said gesturing at the cloth. A few of the other children and a few of the patrons, wore things like it. It reminded him of when he was very little, and his uncle told him he could get new clothes. He never got his new clothes. The sibling balked.

“What?” it said. Shukaku walked forward, and yanked on the hoodie, tearing it off of the sibling’s body.

“Stop, stop it!” the one with pigtails cried. It shoved Shukaku away, putting itself between Shukaku and the other sibling. Shukaku found this gesture useless and aggressive. He got what he wanted. He pressed the hoodie to his cheek. It was very soft. It reminded him of his teddy bear. The sibling watched him, and it’s face slowly settled into something tight and angry.

“You won’t do that to either of us,” it said.

“You can’t stop me,” Shukaku reminded it. The sibling looked back, teeth bared.

“I’m your sister,” it said. Shukaku did not know what this meant, so he did not say a thing. “From now on, we’re going to watch out for you. We are an extension of Father. You will do what we say.”

Shukaku considered this. If they were an extension of Father, then he did not have a choice. He nodded.

 

. . .

 

His siblings made him do things, like wash and go to the bathroom and eat. Though Kankuro never stopped looking a little sick and horrified, Shukaku began to grow used to them. He talked less, as they would often do the talking for him, and this was convenient. Still he did not understand their purpose. They could not make him human, though they tried very hard.

They taught him things, like what a boy was and what a girl was, what sister meant and what brother meant. Shukaku did not understand why these distinctions were useful, but the siblings insisted on their importance. If he got them right, they would reward him. They would collect things to give to him, paper and charcoal, and clay and paints. Shukaku could not say what the objects made him feel, but he used them every chance he got.

 

. . .

 

One day his father came to him, and told him that he was leaving.

“You’re going to be a Jinchuuriki,” his father said. Shukaku did not understand. “This is special training. I called some old friends, and got you a spot. One day you’re going to be my best weapon, and these people specialize in making monsters. You leave immediately.”

Leaving. Shukaku remembered the last time he left. He remembered a quiet house in the woods, charcoal drawings and the magic that seemed to wait behind every corner. Still, Shukaku held no illusions that his life would change.

He nodded. He was leaving.

 

. . .

 

The other children were strange, but they were not like him. Shukaku did not know where they had come from, but he could tell by their softness that they were not trained like he was. They would learn. They would learn, or they would die. There were no other options for people like them. Even death was not quite an option. Shukaku could not seem to die.

“They can’t just keep us here!” One of the boys screamed as he marched around the concrete room in which they were all kept. “They can’t just do this!” He had bright blond hair and whiskers. He looked to Shukaku, and said, “Are you just going to take this?”

Shukaku did not understand the question.

“You’re just going to let them make you kill people?” the boy with whiskers asked, and his eyes demanded that Shukaku answer him. Shukaku wondered where this anger comes from. He did not understand anger. He did not understand how anyone could feel more than an absence of need.

“No one makes me,” he said.

The boy stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Shukaku. His mouth hung open, but he did not look scared. He looked very sad. Again Shukaku was amazed. He did not remember what it was like to feel so much.

 

. . .

 

“You are going out,” a man with long black hair and a snake smile, said.

“You can’t just take him!” The boy with the whiskers shouted. “You don’t have to go I- I don’t know your name, but listen you don’t-”

Shukaku stood. He walked with the man outside.

A city assaulted him from every point. It’s lights its people; it was all too much. This was not the cabin in the woods where he had been loved, this was hostile. A thousand people looked at him. A thousand possibilities for pain hovered in every look. The man with the snake smile walked them to a place where there were trees, and Shukaku felt better, but not by much. He did not know what to do with a person, except kill them, or obey them.

The man pointed to a boy dressed all in green, running, running, running. He was putting up flyers, asking strangers about a lost boy, a friend.

“Hurt him,” the man said.

Shukaku did.

 

. . .

 

When the man with the snake smile was sure he would be doing his training correctly, Shukaku received his own room, and yet he was still not given peace. The boy with whiskers was relentless. Shukaku had been expressly told not to hurt the other children, especially not like he had hurt the green boy. It was not in Shukaku to disobey, but the boy with whiskers was testing his patience.

“Why would you just go with them? Why do you do what they tell you to? You’re hurting people! Don’t you feel something, anything? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Shukaku wanted to lie quietly in his room. He did not sleep often, but he felt satisfaction pretending.

“Fight them! What are you, a coward?” the boy with whiskers pressed up into his face.

“I fear nothing,” Shukaku said. The boy was shaking, his fists clenched at his sides.

“That’s bullshit everyone’s scared,” he said, “I’m scared.” Shukaku stared at him for moments longer, then turned to go lie down on his bed.

He did not make it to his bed.

He did not make it to his bed, because the boy pushed him.

He did not make it to his bed, because the boy pushed him, and then Shukaku turned back around and he wrapped his hands around the boy’s throat and then he began to squeeze, and the boy kicked at him, and clawed at his hands, and thrashed around, and screamed through his hold, not scared, but angry, and just as Shukaku could feel himself begin to slip away from his body, away, away, away, he leaned in very close, and said, “Do not touch me.”

Then he let the boy go. And the boy looked as if he wanted to take a swing at Shukaku, but he did not. He did not, yet.

 

. . .

 

The other children were as careful to keep away from Shukaku as they were to hide their fear. They would not let him know they feared him. But Shukaku was a scary thing. He had been bred to be. Violence was his birthright, his only weapon, his only shield, and his only love.

They sent him out the most. He and the fourth girl, they were sent out the most. One day, she stopped coming back.

“The Akatsuki took her,” the man with the snake smile said. “Next time you go out, take a partner with you.”

The other children knew better than to let Shukaku find them. All, that was, except the boy with whiskers. They left and they fought, and just as Shukaku was killing their mark, the boy with whiskers wrenched him away. The boy with whiskers left his hand on Shukaku’s shoulder.

“Stop it, stop it! They said hurt, not kill, just hurt. You don’t . . . you don’t have to,” he said. Shukaku stared at him. He did not understand why the boy was like this. Though this boy was strange, there was a certain quality to him that Shukaku felt . . . satisfied dealing with. It was like pretending to sleep, or doing the things his siblings told him to. Eat. Sleep. Speak.    

“If you do not kill them, they will kill you,” Shukaku said.  

“No they won’t, they don’t have to,” the boy said. Hope rose on his face, bright and open, though his lips held a terrible scowl. “You don’t have to kill people when you fight them.”

Shukaku considered this. Perhaps he would try that at some point. He would not, however, be trying that today.

“Hm. Now I am going to kill you,” Shukaku said. The boy jumped, and looked back at him as if he could not understand such a simple line of thinking. “I told you not to touch me.”

The boy looked down at his hand, where it was clamped to Shukaku’s shoulder, and rumpled the black fabric of his standard issue t-shirt. The boy removed his hand, and clenched it into a fist.

“Alright then. If it’s a fight you want, then it’s a fight you got!”

This time, the boy with whiskers swung. He swung and scratched, and they toppled to the ground, punching blue and purple spots onto each other's skin. They drew red rivulets of blood and still they did not stop. By all accounts Shukaku did more damage. And yet when they were lying on the ground, both panting, both exhausted, Shukaku did not felt like he had won.

“My name is Naruto, Naruto Uzumaki,” the boy said. Shukaku considered this. They both laid down on the ground. Their marks were passed out a few feet away, and the stars were peeking out through the patchy grey cloud cover. Shukaku liked this kind of sky the best. He liked that there was not so much to think about, when there were only a few stars.

“What does it mean when someone says ‘my name is’?” Shukaku asked. The boy beside him became quiet. This had never happened before, and so it struck Shukaku as odd.

“Your name is who you are, and when people tell it to you, it’s them trying to give you a good measure of themselves. It’s how people call you. What’s your name?” the boy asked.

Shukaku thought.

He remembered his uncle saying something:  _“I’m sorry, Gaara.”_

That sounded like how a person used this ‘name.’

“My name is Gaara,” he said.

“No last name?”

“. . . I don’t think so.”

“Huh, well you should make one up. Just go with something, but nothing lame. Pick something cool. Anyway, you can call me Naruto. Like ‘Hey Naruto, what’s up?’ or like, when you talk about me say, ‘Naruto told me everything was going to be alright, he’s the best.’”

Shukaku thought about this.

“Okay,” he said.

“Do you still want to kill me?” The boy. . . No, Naruto. Naruto asked the question.   

“Yes,” Shukaku said. Naruto laughed, bright and full, like Shukaku was telling a joke. He wondered then, how he had lost to Naruto, when Naruto embodied all of the weakness Shukaku had tried to shield himself from.

“Well, that’s too bad,” Naruto said, “because I’m going to save you. That’s what I’m going to do you know? When I grow up I’m going to save people, and be a real leader,” he said.

“I do not need saving,” Shukaku said.

“Yes you do! We all do. But while we’re stuck, I’m going to protect you,” he insisted. Shukaku could not help it, he laughed, high and hysterical. It sounded like crying, but Naruto must have known it for what it was.

“I’m serious. You may not think you need protecting, but you do. I’ll protect you from yourself, and from fucking Orochimaru and from the Akatsuki too, I won’t let them take any other Jinchuuriki either. We’re all going to get through this and survive. You had better believe it!”

Shukaku did not know what he was going to believe but a part of him felt settled. This strange boy spoke of possibilities that Shukaku had never considered, and suddenly his mind was racing and bending in ways that made his head feel strange. It did not make his heart beat, not like killing did, but it was . . . satisfying. This, he decided, was innate to the human condition, like eating, and pissing, and pretending to sleep.

When they finally picked themselves up and limped home, Shukaku went straight to his room. The man with the snake smile had not given him pencils, or paper, or paint, but Shukaku had objects. He could make something from objects.

 

. . .

Shukaku had stopped counting time. When the people in white vests and black body suits came, Shukaku could not have said how long it had been since Naruto had said he would save them. All he knew was that he was sitting in his room, working on building something, and then someone kicked down his door. His first instinct was to kill this person, but he knew, logically, that he could not simply strangle him. The man was much taller, and he was wearing a strange white bird mask. If Shukaku wanted to kill him he would have to-

“Oh holy sh- Hey! I found another kid,” he called over his shoulder. Then he turned back to Shukaku, but he spoke as if to himself. “Looks like Naruto was right, glad I checked.”

At the mention of Naruto’s name, Shukaku put down the piece of wood he had been preparing to use as a blunt weapon. The man in the mask looked around, as if he might find another child hidden behind the objects. Or perhaps he was looking at the objects.

“What is all this?” he asked, “What did they have you doing?”  

“No one made me,” Shukaku said, “I made this.”

“Oh,” the man said. He had a rifle propped up at his side, but he lowered it as he took in the amalgamation of wood, the face carved into it. “Who is it?”

Shukaku had not consciously thought about the shape of the face until that moment. He looked at it like a child, with fresh eyes.

“My uncle,” Shukaku said. The man with the mask looked away from the sculpture.

“Why were you down here?” The man asked, but again it sounded like he was talking to himself.  

“I was good. They gave me my own room,” Shukaku replied. The man with the masked turned and stared at him. Because Shukaku could not see the man’s face, he was content to stare back, into the blank oblivion of the white paint. Then the man suddenly crouched. It was in Shukaku’s nature to prepare for an attack, but none came. The man in the mask continued to stare.

“Come on kid, we’re leaving,” he said. He held out a hand. Shukaku stared at it, but he did not understand the gesture. He did however, understand leaving. “You can go back to your family now.”

What a strange thing to say. He had always belonged to his father.

 

. . .

 

There were many more of the masked strangers all flittering about like ants through the tunnels of Shukaku’s former abode. Some of them held guns to the caretakers’ heads, and some of them lead away crying children. Shukaku did not like being around so many people. It had become obvious to him at this point that he could not kill these masked strangers, and so he only knew how to obey them. Yet with this many people giving him orders things were bound to become . . . confused.

Then the strangers began to take off their masks, and Shukaku saw them as humans. Shukaku saw a person with half a burned face. He saw Shukaku too, and he ran to them. This did not come as a surprise to Shukaku. He was to be returned to his father, and so like before, this man would deliver him.

“Kakashi, that’s . . .” the burned man said.

The stranger by Shukaku’s side stopped and turned to the man with the burned face.

“Yeah, I know. Naruto was right. You should have seen this kid’s cell, he-”

“That’s him,” the man said. The stranger with the mask . . . Kakashi? Kakashi was not a word Shukaku knew, so perhaps it was a name. Kakashi paused and looked back at the man with the burned face.

“What do you mean.” This was not a question. This was a demand for an explanation.  

“The Sabuku kidnapping case that’s . . . that’s him. That's the kid.” The man with the burned face stared down at him, blank, and uncomprehending.

“What?" Kakashi asked. "It can't be, this kid's been here for at least a year." 

"I carried him home myself," The man with the burned face said. 

"What’s he doing here.” Again this was not a question. The burned man shook his head and stared down at Shukaku as if he did not have an answer. How strange. He, most of all, should have known that Shukaku had always belonged to his father.  

“Hey,” the man with the burned face said, crouching down by Shukaku’s side, “you can go home now, okay? You can go back to your father.”

“I have always belonged to my father,” Shukaku said. The two men stared at him.

“Pardon?” Kakashi eked out after a few seconds of silence. 

“I was always to be returned to my father,” Shukaku said. The two men looked at each other. There was a tremble in their bodies. Then the man with the burned face looked at Shukaku.

“You were going to be returned to him?” he asked. Shukaku did not understand why this was so difficult for a grown man to understand. These were the fundamental mechanics of Shukaku’s universe. This was knowledge innate to surviving.

“I am to be his best weapon. I will be returned to him if I do not die, and I cannot seem to die,” Shukaku said. The man with the burned face became very still. His face was very blank. Then very slowly he reached out.

“Do not touch me,” Shukaku said. The man paused, and he saw in Shukaku’s face, not anger, nor conviction, just a steady reality. Shukaku could not be touched without violence.

“What is that tattoo on your forehead?” the man asked.

“All the children were marked,” he said. Some strange emotion twisted the man’s face, and Shukaku was reminded of the night he had watched the man’s face burn away.

“Love?”

“Father believed that I was overly attached to the idea of love,” he said. The man sat back, his face blank with horror. Shukaku had seen this before. It was a death pallor. It came before a heart stopped beating, though Shukaku was relatively certain this man would not die in the next few seconds.

Kakashi dropped down into a crouch. He put his mask into his hands as if it were his flesh, and he screamed.

“Never again,” he said. “Never again, after this I’m done. I’m done, I . . .” He stood up abruptly. “I’m sorry I-I have to-”

“Call your family,” the man with the burned face said. “This is my responsibility. I should have . . . I’ll get him started.”

The man with the mask did not go far. He pulled out his phone, just a couple paces away and began to dial.

“Gaara,” the man with the burned face said. Shukaku turned. It had been a very long time since someone called him by that name. “I need you to tell me about your father.”

 

. . .

 

_Child fighting ring. . . kidnapping . . . human rights violations . . . atrocities . . . child assassins . . . torture. . . abomination . . . punishment . . ._ These were all words the people on the news used a lot, and yet Shukaku could not attach their tone or their usage to any of his experiences. It did not seem as strange or horrific as what the news said. There was one word though, that the news kept cycling through, over and over, that Shukaku did understand:  _monster._

 

. . .

 

“Hello Gaara. My name is Chiyo,” said an old woman with a face so wrinkled that Shukaku believed it was only attached to her face at a few strategic points.

“Hello,” he said. Temari had been trying to teach him  _social graces_ as of late. This exchange felt meaningless to him, yet still he performed it.

“Do you know why you are here?” she asked. Shukaku nodded. He was here because he did not think he needed to learn how to be human. He could pretend. It was satisfying. But pretending was only worth so much effort.

“I had a grandson like you,” she said. Shukaku did not know what a grandson was. He did not particularly care. “He’s gone now. I wonder, Gaara, do you know why you stay here? Why don’t you leave?”

Shukaku thought about that question. He did not know.  

 

. . .

 

The man with the burned face was named  _Baki_.

He had a  _sister_  named  _Tamari_.

He had a  _brother_ named _Kankuro_.

These were things Shukaku practiced.

He lived in a  _city_ name  _Suna._

He was  _twelve_  years old.  

He was  _homeschooled._

His name was  _Gaara._

His name was  _Gaara._

His name was  _Gaara._

Practicing these things gave him a sense of order. Since he had left, and had not been returned to anyone or anything, he had lacked a sense of order.

When he sweated he was  _hot._

When he shivered he was  _cold._

Hot, meant it was  _summer._

Cold, meant it was  _winter._

His name was  _Gaara_. 

When he was not practicing, he was making. He liked to make things out of unforgiving materials. First he started with wood, but his siblings did not like the fact that he broke the bookshelves, and tables, and beds. They gave him clay, but the clay was forgiving and that did not seem right. So he started to pick up pieces of metal. Then he moved on to stone. He liked sandstone.

“These are good,” Temari said, staring at his objects.

“Bet we could make a shit ton of money if we sold ‘em,” Kankuro said. Temari elbowed him. “What? It’d be good for publicity too. . . I mean,” here his voice dipped low as if Gaara would not hear him, “it’d give them some other way to think about him, instead of, you know-”

“Shh!” Temari elbowed him again, but then she too dipped her head low. “Don’t worry him.”

He wondered if they knew he watched the news. He took out a notebook and he wrote: _my name is Gaara,_ over and over again, while the people on TV described his old world to him.

 

. . .

 

“Do you ever think about redemption, Gaara?” Chiyo asked.

“I do not know what that means,” he said. Chiyo nodded. She never made faces when he did not know a word, not like Kankuro or Temari, or Baki sometimes would. This, Gaara appreciated. Faces were such complicated things and Gaara was not used to decoding every twitch.

“Redemption is when you attempt to repent and be forgiven for the crimes you have committed whether it be against a person or an ideological group. Sometimes these crimes are real, and sometimes they are imagined. For example, when I was young, I worked night and day studying psychology, so that I could repent for the careless way in which I handled my grandson. I felt responsible for him, and the crimes he would later commit, as if they were my own. I wanted to be redeemed,” she said.

“Do I need to be redeemed?” Gaara asked.

“Do you think you need to be?” Chiyo returned. Gaara scowled.

“I do not like when you ask me questions like that,” he said. Chiyo smiled. She did not do that sort of thing often, and the few instances when she did appeared unconnected to Gaara. He could not pick out a pattern in her amusement.

“I don’t suppose you would,” she said.

 

. . .

 

“Gaara!” The boy with whiskers never failed to look at Gaara as if he were both the most interesting thing in the world and the least frightening. Gaara did not know how he did this, as he knew that Naruto was scared. Naruto had said so. Ah, but maybe that had been too long ago. Or rather, maybe Naruto knew how to be scared without being frightened. Or maybe Gaara did not understand the nuances of fear. Regardless, when he was with Naruto, the distinct specter of ‘monster’ seemed to dissipate, or Naruto at least bore half the weight.

Gaara thought that Naruto was a “friend,” although there was something to be said for the way Naruto made Gaara question everything. It was exhausting for Gaara to constantly wonder about how far from satisfied he truly was.

“Naruto,” Gaara said. Naruto beamed, and then vigorously nodded his head. They met up like this, sporadically at best. Naruto would show up announced at his doorstep, and Gaara would welcome him in. There was no rhyme or reason. Sometimes months passed between visits, sometimes it was barely days. Still, this felt correct. It reminded Gaara of when they were children. That echo of order satisfied something that squirmed inside of Gaara these days.  

“Hey, so I’ve been thinking, it’s been a couple years,” Naruto said. Gaara wondered, had it? He couldn’t really remember. He didn’t think about time. There did not seem to be a point to worrying about time, as it would pass with or without his note. “How are you doing?”

Gaara tilted his head to the side. These questions . . . He was getting to understand them better but there was still something fundamentally baffling about them. He did not understand how people felt so much as to always be ‘doing’. Gaara did not really know what feelings ‘did’ to begin with.  

“I sold my first piece,” Gaara said. Naruto smiled and bounced up and down.

“Aw hey man, that’s great! We should celebrate!” he said.

Gaara considered this. He did need more sand paper. Whenever he did something worthy of achievement his siblings would purchase him art supplies. This is what he thought celebrating was.

“I suppose,” Gaara said.

“Woah, wait really? That’s awesome! You know I was just thinking that you don’t really leave your house? I was getting kind of worried, but this is perfect. So, there’s this party, in this field, it’s a big deal at my school, and it’s cool, and you should come. I can introduce you to people,” Naruto said in a rush. Gaara frowned. He did not like people. He was still not sure what he was supposed to do with them. But Naruto seemed to think this was critical, and he was correct in believing that Gaara needed to be saved, so Gaara supposed that people were a necessary part of being human too.  

 

. . .

 

“How does one redeem themselves?” Gaara asked. Chiyo tilted her head to the side, staring with an unblinking intensity. Gaara met her look. This interaction, Gaara understood. He was used to being measured.

After a time Chiyo nodded and returned her head to its upright position.

“First you must understand why your crime was wrong. Then you must perform a restorative action equal to the weight of the crime you committed. Sometimes it is impossible to do this,” she said. Gaara nodded.

For the first time, Gaara thought he understood what Chiyo meant.

 

. . .

 

Gaara did not like people, nor did he like large open spaces, nor did he like carelessness and intoxication. Naruto brought Gaara to his place, and then said “Wait,” while he went to round up other people.

Gaara wondered what it was about Naruto that made pretending to be human so easy for him. Sometimes it seemed like he wasn’t pretending at all.

Gaara stood still in the sea of bodies and booze and thumping music. He watched these strangers, and their odd, idiosyncratic ways. Gaara could not understand the impetus to give up control of oneself, and throw it to a sea of others doing the same thing. There would be no one to catch them. It seemed like an easy way to die.

Then Gaara saw him.

He saw a boy dressed all in green, and suddenly Gaara was not in a field, at a party, but in a park, and he was not somewhere near fifteen, but ten years old again. There was a man whispering in his ear,  _hurt him._ Gaara felt his fingers twitch.

Then he saw the boy in green stumble. A boy with white hair and purple clothes faced him, sneering. He pulled out a knife.

Gaara understood at once. This other boy would hurt the boy in green.

_Redemption,_ Gaara remembered.  _An act of equal weight._  

Gaara walked towards them. On the way he picked up a chair.

 

. . .

 

Naruto was not looking at him. Temari and Kankuro were not looking at him. Only Baki was looking at him.

“Let’s try this again,” Baki said after a while. “What happened?”

Gaara tried to remember what was wrong about his last description. Had he not given enough context?

“He threatened violence, so I picked up a chair and I beat him until he stopped,” Gaara said. Baki turned to stare blankly at the wall. Kankuro covered his mouth with his hand. Naruto looked up at Gaara then, with a strange mixture of pity, anger, and profound sadness. No one spoke. Then Baki sighed.

“I suppose we have to use the insanity defense,” he said. Naruto shot up immediately.

“But it was self-defense. He really thought Kimimaro was going to kill someone!” he shouted. Baki just sighed and shook his head.

“That’s what makes it insane, Naruto.”

 

.  .  .

 

“Why Kimimaro?” Chiyo asked.

“Because he was going to kill the boy in green,” Gaara said. Chiyo considered this.

“Why is different about the boy in green?” she asked. Gaara firmly believed that she was a very perceptive woman.

“Redemption,” Gaara said. Chiyo sat back on the squeaky plastic chair they provided for her. Then she asked,

“Why do you want redemption?”

Gaara did not know.

  

. . .

 

Gaara looked blankly into the dark brown eyes of the judge’s face.

“Do you feel remorse?” he asked.   

“I do not know,” Gaara said.   

 

. . .

 

Gaara felt that his psychiatric ward was a lot like the room he was kept in during his Jinchuriki training. The doctors told Gaara often that he was not to break what was put in his room. Still, Gaara did it. He had to make things. If he did not, it would become _that room_ and he would be Shukaku and he would once again belong to his father.

It was strange, he had not realized that he did not want to belong to his father, until someone tried to send him back.

 

. . .

 

Gaara did not like group therapy. He did not like therapy when the doctor was not Chiyo. The only thing he did like was his art therapy time. Sometimes his siblings would come visit with him. At first they tried to speak with him while he worked, but they quickly found that Gaara did not have much to say. He only wished to do. Soon enough they would come and do as well. Kankuro made puppets, and he made them dance and move with funny voices.

Gaara asked Chiyo about this.

Temari would bring her studies, books and books, and math problems, and essays.

Gaara asked Chiyo about this too.

“They have passions,” Chiyo said. “For Kankuro, it is to make people laugh. For Temari, it is to make the world more efficient.”

“Passion?” Gaara wondered. Chiyo had begun to come during his art therapy time. It was easier for Gaara to talk when he could work with his hands.

“It is something you feel strongly about, something that makes you feel fulfilled,” she said. Gaara looked at the thing before him. People often called them  _sculptures._ Gaara was only comfortable calling them  _pieces. Sculpture_ seemed to imply much more feeling than Gaara truly had.

“I think these pieces might be your passion,” she said. Gaara shook his head.

“I don’t make them with intent,” he said.

“That is the way with most art. You create first, and find the meaning in it later,” she said. Gaara paused. He remembered being a child, and looking at the wood thing he had made out of the pieces of his cell. He remembered that it had his uncle’s face.

“Perhaps,” he said.  

 

. . .

 

Gaara had started to count time after the trial. He did not count in ones and twos. Instead he counted in proportions of “good days” to “bad days.” Gaara had had 210 good days, to 156 bad days. This, Gaara felt, was good. Chiyo had him mark the bad days and the good days on a calendar with a marker. There were other days which were neither and so he did not mark them. Chiyo said this marking would help him achieve a sense of progress, as it would give him a measure of quality versus time. As of now, Gaara’s good versus bad days were dependent mostly on whether or not his piece was going well that day. Chiyo said that this was okay. The fact that this defined good and bad for him was profound in and of itself, and did not need further justification.

At the end of his 156th bad day, the boy with whiskers visited.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hello,” Gaara said.

“Want to take a walk?” he asked.

Gaara was not allowed out of his room after hours.

“Sure,” he said.

 

. . .

 

Naruto began to visit more often. He came during art times, and he came during the night. He talked a lot, about a frog he saw that day, or the year-long trip he went on with his grandfather Jiraiya, who was not his biologically a forbearer, but who was legally responsible for him. When Gaara was released from his psychiatric ward and allowed back into his home, he and the boy with whiskers began to take longer walks. Naruto seemed to like places where there were lots of people, but where the people did not look at him. They went to 24-hour convenience stores, and parks, late night mahjong parlors, and empty school grounds. Gaara could understand why he liked these places, at least to a certain degree. There was something powerful about being anonymous, especially in a crowd. But maybe there was something more than anonymity to these nights. Gaara could feel shadows of it, the vague sense that he was inextricably connected to that precise place, that precise time. Maybe that was what Naruto was trying to show him by taking him to these places. Maybe Naruto was trying to show him that there were other people watching the world behind a glass door.

“It was never pretending for you, was it?” Gaara asked.

_Being human,_ was implied.

Naruto looked out across a school field. They sat side by side on tall metallic structures that Naruto called bleachers. Shukaku thought that one day he would like to take them apart and make something new out of them.

“It was, sometimes,” he said. “Especially after Kimimaro, I just . . . and it wasn’t just you, you know. That was a bad night for everyone. But, well before that too, when I was young, and after it’s . . . It was pretending. But I don’t think it always has to be. That’s what keeps me going.”

Gaara nodded. They sat in silence looking out across a grainy, green field, to another set of identical, towering, metal, bleachers. Gaara wondered if there would ever come a time where his eyes didn’t catch over the novelty of these places. 

 

. . .

 

Chiyo began to bring him books. They were books about all kinds of things, art of different places, art of different styles, and times. Shukaku devoured them. He used them in his own pieces.

“I think you might be a genius,” Chiyo said, watching him carve flesh out of marble. He saw it in a book. He thought he might try it. He was not enjoying it as much as he enjoyed working with sandstone, though Marble was ostensibly more lovely. Gaara liked the way sandstone felt rough beneath his hands, and he felt that preference made for better pieces.  

“Okay,” Gaara said.

After that, she brought him more books, dense and complicated things about the meaning of art. Gaara was not sure he cared about what these books had to say, but he read them none the less. Something about them was satisfying to read. It reminded him of being anonymous, and necessary in the night.

 

. . .

 

During the day, Gaara worked with his hands. Temari and Kankuro charged themselves with moving his pieces. He would make one, and they would sell it, or donate it, or put it somewhere in the house. Very slowly, Gaara began to see things in his materials before he began to work. He began to realize an intent that he thought had, perhaps, always been there, below the surface. He thought that maybe it had hidden itself from him, in fear that he would kill it like he had all of his other desires. On nights when it was hardest for him to pretend, the thought that this desire was now returning eased the high hysteria that lurked behind his eyelids.   

“Gaara,” Temari said, easing into his studio with a reserved caution that meant she was about to ask him to do something he would not want to, “there’s a woman who would like to interview you for television. It wouldn’t be live; it would be prerecorded.”

Gaara paused.

“How long?” he asked.

“At least an hour,” she said. Gaara shook his head. Temari shifted from foot to foot.

“How long would you like?” she asked. Gaara considered this. He had not thought ahead to prepare an answer. He did not know, truly, now long would be sufferable.

“Ten minutes,” he said. Temari pumped her fist in the air.

“Yes! I promise this will be good for your career, I swear,” she said. Gaara did not think he really had a career, but he was beginning to understand the value in humoring his siblings. He could not say, exactly, what this value was, but he thought that when he humored them, it led to more good days than bad.

 

. . .

 

Though Gaara could not see the cicadas, he heard them scream on and on. Naruto had been taking them to the school more and more. It became strange for him to take them somewhere else. Gaara wondered what he was supposed to feel about this. He wondered if this place was their place, the den of monsters.

“And so Jiraiya says to get in the van, but I’m too busy worrying about Gamabunta-”

“The man you think looks like a toad?” Gaara asked, for clarification. Naruto beamed.

“Yeah!” he said. Gaara felt that he had accomplished something significant. Talking was beginning to come quite easily. However, instead of continuing the story, Naruto fell silent.

“You’ve been doing really well with your whole art thing recently. Temari said so. She said you made some great big procedural thing out of sand? Like those monks do, but it wasn’t religious, it was something else,” Naruto said. “I don’t know a lot about art, so . . .”

“Neither do I,” Gaara said. Naruto looked at him, and then laughed. He fell back against the bleachers and laughed some more. Gaara understood vaguely why this was funny, but he did not believe it was deeply so.

“You should go to school,” Naruto said, pushing himself back up. Gaara stared at him. He had never been to school before. “I mean it. You should.”

“Why?” Gaara asked.

Naruto was quiet for a long while after that. They sat, unspeaking, on the bleachers, with a flashlight rolling yellow-grey stripes of light between their feet. 

“Do you ever think about redemption?” Naruto asked at last. Gaara returned his question with a long silence of his own.

Then he said, “Okay.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This might be part of a series if I can ever get my ass into gear and write other parts.
> 
> Also I want you all to know that I almost named this piece "the artist formerly known as shukaku"


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